


Who Let the Dogs Out?

by amelia



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Cats, Chaos, Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Dogs, Gen, M/M, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Thwarting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22748839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amelia/pseuds/amelia
Summary: Crowley sets loose the pets of London to fulfill a mission. But his next assignment is to thwart his favorite angel.In which a demon thwarts his angel knowingly and unknowingly, brings home a cat to the bookshop, and tries to make it all up to his angel in the end.Aziraphale and Crowley are in an established relationship, but Crowley's boss doesn't need to know that.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 20





	Who Let the Dogs Out?

It was a brisk London morning, and a golden dog stood in the window, looking out on the street. His favorite poodle had just strutted by, wagging her tail suggestively, and he wanted nothing more than to be outside sniffing at her. 

Then a dark shadow of a person strode into view. His limbs were slightly too long and he moved a bit like a wind-up toy, bending improbably at the knees. With a flourish, he snapped his fingers, and the window vanished.

The golden dog, whose nose had until just now been pressed up against the glass, bounded forward with all the inertia of wanting. With a bark that said, “Hold on baby, I’m coming!” he took off at a run after his poodle friend. 

“Someone knows what he wants,” muttered the dark human-shaped person to himself, with a chuckle. The demon Crowley kept walking at his own more leisurely pace, snapping his fingers every few houses down the row. Pet-flaps and doors and windows swung open or disappeared entirely. The streets were a writhing crowd of freed pets who couldn’t believe their luck. 

A procession of school children rounded the corner all in a line, headed toward Crowley, but they were stopped up short by the lead dog. This chihuahua, ignoring the evidence of his eyes, was convinced he was twice the size of the measly baby humans. He lunged forward with a frenzied bark, determined to protect his master’s street. 

The small boy in the lead had a friendly Labrador at home and no fear of animals, and he let go of the rope and jumped forward. “Puppy!” he yelled at the dog, even as the nearest adult reached out to stop him. 

“No, Paul!”

Too late. Whether because the dog was startled, or because he was determined to defend what was his, he bit down on the small child’s outstretched arm. The boy let out a wail that echoed through the neighborhood.

As the adults crowded around the injured boy, a girl in the crowd grabbed at the tail of a pit bull who was wandering by, and together they ran off, the girl giggling and the dog barking in joy.

“Oh, dear,” Crowley muttered, and turned around before he could see what happened next, throwing a quick miracle behind him to heal the boy’s injury. He snickered a little, watching the girl child and her new pit bull friend chasing each other down the street.

The sound of the boy’s wailing followed him, but Crowley reassured himself that firstly, crying was what children did, and secondly, it was barely a scratch after all. 

\--

Aziraphale stood impatiently in a church, waiting to bestow a blessing to a child during the boy’s first communion. The ceremony had already begun, and the family was late. No doubt, there was a good reason. They were beloved in the community for founding a homeless shelter, starting coat drives, volunteering at soup kitchen and so on, and the child was generous on his own, often known to share his coins and food with other children. 

The angel tapped his toe impatiently. Heaven's instructions were to bestow a blessing of protection from illness and pain, so both father and son could continue carrying on their work and earn an esteemed role in heaven. 

Aziraphale wasn’t sure exactly what happened to these blessed souls when they died. Rather what worried him—what he tried not to think about—was the fate of other, equally generous humans who weren't gifted such blessings. But he couldn’t bless everyone, he supposed, and he had rather a busy schedule for the day. Already, he was going to be late for his table at lunch. 

A man sitting next to him was checking his phone. “Rude,” Aziraphale thought to himself, narrowly holding himself back from whispering it aloud (rudely). 

“There’s been an accident,” the man muttered to his wife, “Phillip and Paul aren’t going to make it.”

Aziraphale sighed. He'd been meant to meet them, Phillip and Paul, and so it seemed like he’d been stood up. With a wave of his hands, he miracled himself to lunch. 

\--

The graveyard was a damp wreck of a space, with moss crawling over stones and ivy vines creeping up spindly trees that had long since died. Some humans avoided places like these that reminded them of decay, but Crowley liked the quiet and the sense of all living things competing for space. It was one place humans hadn’t had the sense to cut back and tame. 

A dark wad of figures crowded at one edge of the graveyard, where newly departed were still being interred. Crowley liked to avoid that corner, which still smelt like smug priests and the occasional visiting angel. 

Still, he noticed it was an unusual gathering. The priest seemed to be crying more than any of the family. “We all loved her!” he was saying. 

One of the other men broke rank and came toward the priest, “We all know you loved her more than most! Broke our marriage, and made her question her faith. This is your fault!”

Crowley hummed to himself. This funeral was getting weird and slightly juicy.

Then the man lunged forward, decking the priest in the jaw. Crowley cringed. Nearby, he heard a snickering laugh and turned to see Hastur there, looming behind a half-overturned gravestone. 

“Hey Hastur,” Crowley greeted him. “Uh, that lot—your doing?” he nodded with his head over toward the funeral that was now breaking out to a full-on fist-fight. 

“Yes,” Hastur cackled. “The priest is ours. Tempted him to seduce that man’s wife.”

“Well done,” Crowley said, impressed. “Rather think you have the other one too.”

“Nah,” Hastur said, “he was already ours. He cheated on her first.”

“Nggk.” 

A small dog trotted up from behind him and sniffed at Hastur’s trouser leg. “Ehh,” sneered the demon, “What’s this?”

The dog raised his leg and let out a long stream of yellow pee, soaking the demon’s trousers and shoe. Crowley watched the dog admiringly. “That’s gotta feel good, emptying the bladder.” 

Hastur shook the dog off, with a little stomp and huff. “I’m not a fire hydrant!” he kicked out at the dog, who had finished his work and was already running away. “Begone, beastie!” 

“Suppose that’s your doing?” Hastur glared at Crowley, and drew himself up, trying to return to proper lurking form. “Crowley, is it done?” 

“Ah…Good chaotic fun. Yeeessss,” Crowley said, “Mission accomplished. I have let out McSnuff.”

“Who?” asked Hastur. “The job was for the MP, not a Scottish morgue assistant.” 

“Indeed. I freed the MP’s pooch. Now instead of casting the decisive vote in the referendum, she’ll be out searching for her missing pup, Mr. McSnuff.” Crowley grinned, pleased with himself. 

Hastur growled again. “Very clever, Crowley,” he said, “but not exactly direct action. How do you know it will work?”

Crowley shrugged, unconcerned. “Spent a few days watching. She and her daughter are very attached to that little Maltipoo.”

“Hmph,” Hastur responded. “Ready for your next assignment then?”

“Why not?” said Crowley. “What’s it to be? Block another key vote? Bait Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk in a tweet storm?” 

“It’s the angel, Aziraphale,” said Hastur. 

“Ah,” said Crowley, his stomach tying up in a knot. He cleared his throat. “The one that runs a bookshop?” he asked offhandedly, as if he didn’t know, as if he wasn’t meeting the very angel later that afternoon. He couldn’t help his shoulder from twitching a bit, and he kicked at the ground to help ease his sudden anxiety.

“Is there another angel stationed on Earth?” Hastur frowned. 

Crowley screwed up his nose, partly at the implication of being further burdened by less welcome angels, but also at the smell that was starting to emanate from Hastur. The demon already stank of rot and filth, but the dog’s urine on his trousers was fresh as the dew in the grass. 

“I hope not,” Crowley answered, honestly. “One angel’s enough for thwarting. What’s the job?”

\--

The bell on the door of the bookshop chimed and the door clanged closed. Aziraphale looked up from the stack of books he was sorting to see an inky mutt, its tongue lolling out of his jaw, trodding across the carpet. 

A young man walked in front of him. The angel stood up, the books tumbling from his lap, “Your dog can’t come in here! Take him out at once.”

The boy frowned and looked at the dog. “He’s not mine.”

“Well, get him out!” Aziraphale walked over to the dog, who responded by wagging his tail and sitting like a Very Good Boy. “Oh dear,” said Aziraphale.

“Has he got tags?” asked the boy. “We should find if he’s lost.”

That seemed like the reasonable thing to do. Aziraphale showed the boy to the old rotary phone by the register and commanded him to keep the dog in that cubby. While the boy phoned the number on the tags, the angel went to vacuum up the mess. 

He turned when the bell chimed again, and a girl rushed in, out of breath. “It’s madness out there!” she said. “When did we get over-run by strays?” Her face was sweaty, and she looked frightened. 

“Madness?” echoed Arizaphale, peering out of the shop. He saw nothing amiss, save a group of dogs running down the street. 

“Hope it’s not PETA again!” the boy answered cheerfully, as he waited on hold on the phone.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Aziraphale led the girl to an armchair and handed her a book. 

The boy on the phone was talking quietly, so Aziraphale started sorting his books again. When the boy hung up, he knelt down. “Your people are going to pick you up soon,” he said, petting the dog. 

“Ah good news,” said Aziraphale relieved. “You’ll wait with him outside?” 

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” the boy started to say, but the angel was already dragging him -–and the dog he was holding onto by extension—out the door.

Once he’d deposited them on the doorstep, he rubbed his hands together, trying to get the traces of mud off. But before he could get back to sorting the books, the bell chimed again. He heard a growl, and a hiss that sounded like an angry cat. There was Crowley’s voice making an indecipherable “Hngggghhh!” Then the door slammed. “Angel!” 

Aziraphale huffed out an annoyed breath and turned around to see Crowley carrying a raggedy cat with a halo of white fur. 

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said with a sigh. “I’ve had enough stray animals in my shop already today. Take that one outside where it belongs.”

“All proper bookshops have cats,” Crowley said. He rubbed his nose in the cat’s fluffy neck, and nibbled at its ear, and the cat purred like a motorboat. Then he flipped the cat around stared in its eyes. “And if she gives you any trouble, I’ll skin her alive.” He growled low in his throat, and the cat cowered. Its ears went back, and her purring turned to trembling. 

With that, Aziraphale knew he was done for, but he held out, “I…What if she’s got fleas?”

Crowley looked up, “I’ve given her instructions. No fleas allowed, nor mice nor any other vermin. Including customers. You don’t like someone, you just have to give the word, she’ll hiss and send them away.” 

He grinned as if he’d invented something splendid and held out the cat, but as Aziraphale made no move to take it, Crowley set her down with a stern warning. “Remember what I told you!” 

“Mew!” she responded and took two steps toward Aziraphale, as if he might protect her. She sniffed his pressed trouser leg, then proceeded to rub her face on him, walking in a circle around his leg and claiming his ankles for her own. 

“Ah,” Aziraphale shook his foot. “Move along, now, good kitty. And, will you be feeding her then, or is that my responsibility now?” he frowned again at the demon.

“Just give her a bowl of milk and a can of fresh tuna in the morning.” With a wave of Crowley’s hand, a bowl appeared, and the cat let out a happy meow and trotted toward her meal. 

“So, dinner tonight?” Crowley asked, as if hadn’t just set a strange beast free in the bookshop.

Aziraphale was still watching the cat skeptically. “I have a job tonight, actually.” He looked pointedly at Crowley. “Can't dawdle. Best be going soon.”

Crowley nodded and extended his arms wide in offering. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it for you later, I promise. Just come to dinner with me, angel. Consider it part of the arrangement.”

Aziraphale threw him an exasperated look. “Now, I can’t just ignore –” he looked up, “my orders.” He turned then. It was hard to talk with outsiders around about the important matters. The girl had gotten up and knelt by the kitten and was petting the white furball with whispered baby talk. 

“Now, we’re closing,” Azirpahale told her, kneeling down beside her. “Afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. And take this creature with you!” He picked up the cat, shoved it in the girls’ arms, and shuttled them both out the door. 

There was another hiss and a growl, presumably from the dog still waiting for its owners to arrive outside. They wouldn’t for a while, because the streets were crammed with traffic jams caused by dogs chasing cars, dogs blocking cars, cats and dogs fighting in the streets, children begging their parents to let them adopt the cute new puppy they’d just found, and so on.

In the bookshop, Crowley leaned against a column, waiting for the angel to step back inside. The door slammed, and Aziraphale straightened his vest and let out another dramatic sigh.

“At last, we’re alone.” Crowley sauntered over to the angel and leaned in to kiss him. 

“Now tell me what this is all about, Crowley,” Aziraphale demanded, smoothing down Crowley’s odd scarf-tie.

\--

They wound up in the restaurant that Crowley had arranged a reservation for. Thanks to the many people out searching for lost pets, there were tables to spare. 

“The _cordon bleu_ is delightful!” Aziraphale lifted his face to the sky and let out a small hum of happiness. 

“Glad to hear it.” Crowley watched him, one eyebrow raised. He never quite understood how the angel managed to lose himself in the joy of food. It was a constant miracle, he supposed, one he never tired of watching. 

The angel set down his fork and skewered Crowley with a careful look, his blue eyes blazing intently. “So you’ve tempted me to dinner. What’s the occasion, Crowley?”

The demon cleared his throat and pulled at the tablecloth. “Even now,” he said, “my boss Hastur is waiting for you at the rendesvouz where you’re meant to leave the blessing. It’s my job, apparently, to distract you.” He raised his glass of wine. “To distractions, angel.”

Aziraphale blinked at him. “Your job tonight is to thwart me.” 

“Just so,” Crowley nodded. “I’ll thwart you now, and make it up to you later.”

“Well,” said the angel, barely surprised, “consider me quite thwarted.” He clanked his glass on Crowley’s and took a generous sip. “Tempted, even.”

“Oh, I dooo hope so,” Crowley drawled. He reached out a free hand and brushed it meaningfully across the angel’s knuckles.

Aziraphale smiled. “I suppose I’ll have to tell you how to give the blessing later. And just who it’s for.”

“Consider it my pleasure,” Crowley grinned and looked down at the menu. “Shall we have the chocolate cake or the fruit tart for dessert?”

Aziraphale frowned, “Well, suppose we consider one of each. There are two of us, after all. One sweet and the other, quite tart.”

Crowley did his best to glower behind his smile. They both knew Crowley would have espresso only for dinner, but he was happy to order for them both.

\--

After dinner, Crowley sent the Bentley to take Aziraphale home -–with a stern warning it could learn to drive itself, thank you. Self-driving cars would exist soon enough, and it had better be self-sufficient and ahead of its time. Crowley himself went on to meet Hastur in the park. 

“Well done,” Hastur hissed quietly as Crowley approached. “I kept watch. There was no sign of the angel.” 

“Ah yes,” Crowley said. “I made sure of it.”

Hastur was lurking in the shadow of a tree near the appointed bench. Though Crowley thought privately, it seemed less like lurking, and more like they were fraternising in an area where young men were known to meet furtively and disappear into the foliage together. Well, Hastur was quite furtive, though Crowley didn't think he could explain the rest of the usual activities here to him. And he really didn't want to.

“What did you do?” Hastur asked. “To lure him away?”

“For one thing,” Crowley shrugged, “set a cat loose in the bookshop. And made sure he had prime dinner reservations.”

“Angels don’t eat,” Hastur said, confused.

“This one does,” Crowley said. “Trust me. You may have noticed he’s a bit…er…rotund?”

“Er, yeah, all right,” conceded Hastur. “Haven’t seen him. Don’t want to look at that, er, divine light. Gross stuff that.”

“Gross, yeah,” Crowley screwed up his face like he was disgusted. And if it had been any other angel, maybe he would be. Divine light was a bit off-putting, but after 6,000 years of knowing Aziraphale on earth, the angel had his own frequency quite different from his brethren. More and more, he and Crowley seemed attuned to one another.

Hastur was looking out at the path. Lights were strung along poles in the winter months, and two men were talking to each other nearby, looking around to see if they were alone. “Bugger these lights,” Hastur grumbled. “In the olden days, you could lurk properly, in the dark.” 

“Humans don’t really approve of lurking,” Crowley noted with some amusement. He rather liked the string of lights bordering the path. It lent a calm, safe air to the park. Too safe, he supposed. “Yeah, right. Hold on, be right back.” He concentrated, and blinked out.

One might think, according to the rules of existence, that demons can’t just disappear in one place and reappear in another, and technically that would be true. However, Crowley has taken advantage of the miniscule blinking in the string of lights flanking the path. In the millisecond they blinked off and on, he’s transported himself within the wires to the lamp-post outside Aziraphale’s bookshop. To the uninformed, casual observer, the effect is that he’s disappeared and reappeared elsewhere.

But to the dog waiting outside the bookshop, he can see the awkward demon falling out of the lamp bulb and dropping to earth in a tangle of strange limbs. The whole effect resembles a rubber band bouncing, then stretching out as if wound tightly around something. In other words, like someone shooting a rubber band off their fingers, only in reverse, till Crowley is standing upright and taut and wound up again into human form.

Crowley shook himself, somewhat like a dog (though he’d be loathe to admit it), and walked toward the bookshop. The bell chimed, followed by the usual, “We’re closed!” Aziraphale knew that Crowley was the only one who can enter the bookshop after he'd locked the door, but that never prevented him from calling out as a precaution, anyway. 

“Just me!” called Crowley cheerfully. “Borrow a pair of scissors, could I?” Without waiting for an answer, he plucked the scissors out of the little cup by the register that held pens, one or two dropped feathers, and a letter opener with a brass handle.

“Didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” Aziraphale said from the doorway. 

“I’m not,” Crowley frowned. He stepped forward to the angel. “Don’t wait up for me.”

“Hardly going to sleep without you, am I?” Aziraphale chuckled softly.

"Right then." Crowley gave him a half-wave, half-military-salute, then shut the door carefully behind himself. Carefully he positioned himself under the lamp, shut his eyes, and jumped, winding through the electric wires. The whole thing felt like a rush, and Crowley fell back out near where Hastur was still huddled under a tree, not quite succeeding at a good Lurk.

“There you are,” grumbled the other demon as he caught sight of Crowley. “What are you up to?”

Crowley climbed up the back of a park bench and reached up, and though his arms shouldn’t have been long enough to quite reach the overhead lights, he managed to lift the scissors, clamp down on them, and cut the wires for the lights. There was a little series of clacks and a few orange sparks. Then as if in slow motion, the lights began going out one by one. In a few moments, the park fell into darkness.

Hastur laughed suddenly, demonically. Now that, thought Crowley, was a proper laugh. He wasn’t sure he could manage a proper demonic laugh himself anymore. Shame, that.

They lurked in companionable silence, for a bit. “How are things downstairs?” Crowley finally said. He didn’t really care, or want to spend any more time with Hastur than necessary, but felt on the rare occasion that his boss presented himself topside, Crowley should make an effort toward a good impression. The more ingratiated he could become now, the less work he would actually have to do for his job. If they thought well of him, he could get away with a little bit more. And it didn't hurt to have some gossip from below. He was woefully out of touch with whatever Hell was up to these days.

“Eh,” Hastur mumbled. “Plumbing’s gone to shit. Beelzebub’s anxious for the end times.”

“What’s new, am I right?” Crowley made an attempt at elbowing Hastur, but his elbow met a bush instead of the demon’s side, and he yelped as a thorn caught in his sleeve. 

“Hmm,” Hastur said, not answering him. He was good at menace, looming silence, and taking things literally, but not a very good conversationalist.

In the darkness, a while light was bouncing down the path toward them, then there was another from the other direction. “Look, they’ve got their phones!” Crowley noticed. “Humans, drawn like moths to the light. They don't know how to go on without it.” It was rather magical, the little lights floating along the path. Human ingenuity and cleverness always warmed his cold little heart a little, though of course, he couldn’t say this to Hastur. 

“They think their little fires will protect them,” Hastur sneered. 

“Right!” Crowley doused his own delight and tried to echo Hastur’s scorn, “but they can’t see anything outside that little arc of light.”

“Better for sneaking up on ‘em!” Hastur murmured, then bounded behind one fellow, grabbing the phone from his hand and hissing for good measure. The lad shouted and tried to chase him but Hastur ducked and feinted, and disappeared to the other side of the path. The fellow took off in the dark, at a jog. 

It was a long walk back to the bookshop, now that the lights were out. Crowley liked the cold and the night. He passed at least one couple getting it on, while the shrubbery around them trembled in distaste at the scandal within its limbs. Crowley thought about his angel waiting for him at home and his own private, delicious sins.

Back in the shop, he opened the door quietly and plunked the scissors back in the cup. Aziraphale came out from behind a shelf, his little round glasses perched on his nose. He’d been reading in near-darkness, with a few lit candles on a table behind him, and he looked owlish and calm. 

“You weren’t by any chance using those for evil, were you?” Aziraphale asked, suspiciously. 

“Just sowing chaos, really,” said Crowley uncomfortably, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. "Not really evil. Spreading darkness. Nothing wrong with a little darkness."

“Chaos is all around us my dear,” Aziraphale answered, removing the glasses and letting them hang on the chain around his neck. “Darkness, too. So I suppose, that’s all right.” 

Crowley chuckled and swaggered over toward the angel. He picked up the glasses, lifted them over Aziraphale’s neck, and set them down on the table. And then he lifted the book from the angel’s hands. 

“Keep my page,” Aziraphale asked, anxiously.

“Course.” Crowley miracled a bookmark, knowing the angel would be cross if he dog-eared the paper. Then he leaned into Aziraphale, pulling him in and breathing in the warm, dusty smell of books and tea and divinity. He snapped his fingers, and the candles and lamps all went dark. “Bed?” he asked, softly.

Aziraphale chuckled, wrapping his arms around Crowley. “Are you going to tell me what that was all about today, with the animals running loose?”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Crowley said. He leaned in to press a kiss to the angel’s cheek. “Think we have more important things on right now. Ready to sow some chaos of our own?”

“Oh yes,” the angel sighed into him, and Crowley led him up the stairs to their room. 

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't found enough fics where Crowley is just sowing chaos, playing pranks, and being his devious self. Even in the show, it felt like they glossed over the fact he's a demon and has been possibly doing little evil things forever, and cut out the one scene where he's spreading rats in the phone room to destroy the cables. 
> 
> Fortunately-- or unfortunately-- this came out like tooth decaying fluff anyway. Possibly Crowley is a bit crap at his job, although I could see some unintended consequences from his actions. You, the reader, can decide...
> 
> Also, I'm sorry, I wanted to make this more relevant by making the dog at the beginning the dog of some famous literary character, and making the MP someone notable but I really don't know British politics. Imagine in there whomever you'd like or make suggestions in the comments...


End file.
